As any guy with even an ounce of experience trying to meet women online can tell you, half the game is dodging the fakers. You know who I’m talking about: The men who troll online forums, chat rooms, and even social media trying to convince others that they possess the fairer sex’s genital anatomy.
You may even be familiar with the term “catfish,” which is the name that has been coined for the fellows who do this and for the activity itself. But did you know that there exists a bonafide catfish fetish, and people are in fact getting off on this?
ATTENTION, PEOPLE: I have recently been made aware of a new fetish in town, and you’re not even going to believe it’s real. “Catfish findom” is a thing, and I’m afraid we have to deal with it. Prepare yourselves accordingly.
Actually, let me clarify, because a catfish fetish can have two distinct meanings. The more straightforward of them is what I was just talking about: A guy who goes around pretending to be a chick online.
He’ll chat up other guys while playing his feminine “character,” perhaps showing readily-available pictures of real women from the web to marks who have no Google Image Search skills as “proof” of his authenticity.
Generally, our catfish will then try to have some kind of sexually-charged conversation from a woman’s perspective, whether that’s straight cybersex or simply talking about “her” (his) imaginary wild sex life. Presumably, he’s not just doing this to kill time. It’s a genuine catfish fetish, and he’s typing with one hand all the way through.
More: Financial Domination 101
I should note that guys might try to find actual women online and hope to fool them, too. Their strategy might be to simply come onto them, or they may have something more nefarious in mind, trying to use girl-girl trust to get their victim to send them real naked pictures of herself. Even in this scenario, the guy is still a catfish.
Now, I have no idea what we’re supposed to call it if the “girl” he’s trying to pull one over on is in fact a guy who’s also trying to catfish him. This fetish gets complicated, and you haven’t even seen anything yet…where’s my bong.
The Catfish Fetish That Makes You Go “Huh?”
The other form of the catfish fetish is one that’s a great deal less intuitive, and it’s for people who get off on being the catfish’s victim. I was just reading an article about this on Gizmodo not too long ago, talking about guys seeking out people online who claim to be women, so they can send the fraudster money and get off on the fact that they’ve just been scammed.
Wait, what? Alright, let’s back up a little bit here. What we’re talking about now is a catfish findom fetish, and that’ll be easier to understand if we’re clear on the “findom” part. Findom is just shorthand for “financial domination,” which is itself a sub-niche of the wildly popular “femdom” (female domination) fetish.
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Femdom is about women taking control of men in many different possible ways, and findom simply zooms in on that, to a man’s wallet. No, really. In findom, men enjoy having their money controlled and taken from them by powerful, dominant women.
Like most fetishes, the extent to which findom drains wealth depends on the people involved, but it can be anything from a man making a one-time payment to his mistress (usually called his “Goddess” in this particular kink) all the way to surrendering the full contents of his bank account and accepting whatever allowance he’s allowed to have of his own money.
There’s a lot more depth to findom, of course, but I don’t want to get too far diverted by it right now, since we’re here to talk specifically about catfish findom.
Findom is all about surrendering your finances to someone else. Apparently, arousal is generated by the idea of putting your money at the mercy of a dominant figure who you’re attracted to (or maybe not).
So, with findom in mind, how does this version of the catfish fetish work? Basically, men get off on giving money online to someone who claims to be a woman, in the “belief” that they actually are a woman, when in reality it’s a scam. But I put that word in quotation marks because this fetish can get pretty surreal.
The arousal for the guy is in the fact that he’s actually being catfished — that he’s being lied to. So catfish findommes (“findomme” just means “financial dominatrix”) will post on social media advertising that they are fakes, that their pictures are not really them and that they’re only there to take advantage of you.
This is exactly what a guy who’s into catfish findom wants, so he’ll happily send money now that he’s been assured that he’s a fool for doing so.
More: How To Become a Findom…
As in so many other forms of femdom (cuckoldry and sissyfication come to mind), the sexual arousal and gratification here comes from loss of control and humiliation. These guys want to have their power taken away, and be made to feel emasculated and helpless.
What’s unique and interesting about this particular girl-power fetish, though, is that it isn’t necessary for a girl to actually be involved.
The only thing someone who’s into this kink knows about the person they’re sending money to is that they aren’t who they “say” they are (it’s confusing, I know). The catfish putting up those posts with female names and pictures may not only be lying about their identities, to which they already fess up, but they could in fact be men.
For someone with this fetish, even if that someone is himself a heterosexual male, it doesn’t matter. All that’s important is the fantasy of being scammed.
In this fetish, the scam is the point. If the guy is sending money to an actual attractive female, he wouldn’t get aroused. So, a pretty girl pretending to be a guy pretending to be a pretty girl would be the actual swindle. Except when it’s not (see below).
And that Gizmodo article I mentioned references a woman (a real one, apparently) who points out that there’s significant moral value in the fact that it’s a fantasy, as opposed to a real scam. Abbie Nooday has written entire guides helping net-goers avoid catfishes online who genuinely lie to them in whatever sort of bid to take their money.
Now, she’s a catfish findomme, but she’s careful to draw a distinction between what she does and the activities of the people she has warned about in the past.
She’s one of the ones who makes it clear in her posts that she’s only there to “lie” to you, so if you choose to send her money, you know exactly what the score is. You also want to be taken advantage of, which in a bizarre, convoluted way means you’re actually NOT being taken advantage of.
Except that you are. Sort of. (Again, where is my gawwt daymm bong?!?)
If you’re confused, don’t feel too bad. Like I always say, I don’t judge any sexual fetish in which no consenting adult who doesn’t want to gets hurt, but I have a hard time wrapping my mind around this one. It just seems like the kind of kink that falls apart under any kind of logical inquiry.
Because you’re being told up front that it’s a scam, so then it’s not a scam. But it must be, because otherwise you wouldn’t get off on it. I mean, isn’t there at least some kind of paradox in play here? I guess the heart wants what the heart wants (and right now, my heart wants weed).
Whatever the case, this fetish is definitely for real. The Gizmodo article interviewed one particular fellow who says he’s so enthusiastic about being catfished, he spends hundreds of dollars per week making payments to “women” who admit they’re full of it. Hey, you do you, man. You do you.